Now that the Unity hate has cooled down, how do you feel about the WM?

I actually had to use Unity for a little while some weeks ago, after replacing my 32-bit Xubuntu install for 64-bit Ubuntu, (Xubuntu's ISO doesn't come with WUBI, so I needed plain ol' Ubuntu until I installed XFCE again from the official PPA.) and I gotta say, I had it all figured out in 5 minutes tops. A bit quirky, but not impossible to learn.

I navigated it quite fluently, despite how much I hated it with every fiber of my being when Unity first made its rounds. I'd go so far as to say it's viable and eye-catching for the desktop whether you're using a mouse, tablet, or touchscreen. If you're looking for something different from what even Microsoft is offering in Windows 8, Unity's got it.

That's not to say I'm sticking with it, though. While it's way more intuitive, functional, and easier on the eyes than Gnome 3, I just don't feel it's customizable enough for my needs. Customization is one of the reasons why I love Linux so much, because I can tweak the desktop to be as lightning fast for computing as I can get with a mouse straight out of the box. I get that and so much more from XFCE.

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So long story short, I don't feel much hate for Unity anymore, just a preference to something else for a more efficient and flexible computing experience. Might give it another serious trial once more options are available on the user's end. Gnome 3, however, I may gladly bash until Kingdom come, but that's a whole other can of worms for another topic. So how do you guys feel about Unity now?

Re: Now that the Unity hate has cooled down, how do you feel about the WM?

I have the Launcher set for Autohide. The top panel set for transparent. And I now have wall to wall, top to bottom photographic wallpaper. I like the clean look and the wide, open space of the desktop. But then again I am not someone who likes to endlessly modify the desktop

It is a machine. It is more stupid than we are. It will not stop us from doing stupid things.Ubuntu user #33,200. Linux user #530,530

Re: Now that the Unity hate has cooled down, how do you feel about the WM?

Originally Posted by johnluke728

So how do you guys feel about Unity now?

From the very beginning I don't started to hate anything without knowing something well enough.
It was just a test for me. But now I can say easily that I like unity more than before. Superb desktop idea of Canonical Ltd, simple & easy to use.

Re: Now that the Unity hate has cooled down, how do you feel about the WM?

Originally Posted by grahammechanical

I have the Launcher set for Autohide. The top panel set for transparent. And I now have wall to wall, top to bottom photographic wallpaper. I like the clean look and the wide, open space of the desktop. But then again I am not someone who likes to endlessly modify the desktop

i like the idea of having a dock with most used applications that also has a search feature built into it unfortunately i think gnome-shell handles it much better. for example i can disable the hot corner with an extension making it so that the dock only shows itself when i want it too. this and using the super key to bring up the search feature as well as putting a window list on the top and having the scale feature built into the activities button makes it a much better desktop imo.

Whoever came up with the phrase "There is no such thing as a stupid question" obviously never had the internet.

Re: Now that the Unity hate has cooled down, how do you feel about the WM?

Unity has been my favourite DE ever since I've used it. The launcher works (and autohides), and the dash is very useful. I like the notifications, the global menu, everything just looks great and works.

Re: Now that the Unity hate has cooled down, how do you feel about the WM?

I love it. I'm growing to like HUD (can be improved, seems I have to know a little about the menu structure of any given program to use it effectivly) I like the search driven dash (I don't have to search through menu's to find applications) I love the global menu, saves some vertical space on small displays. I love that I almost have zero panel space wasted with the global menu and a hidden launcher.

The largest con for me is it's a little chuggy on my netbook, I wish it could slim down a bit.

"You can't expect to hold supreme executive power just because some watery tart lobbed a sword at you"

Re: Now that the Unity hate has cooled down, how do you feel about the WM?

Last I used it, I didn't quite settle in, much as I wanted to. Feature-wise, it's ahead of Gnome Shell by far. Workspace management is still terrible compared against Shell and effects are still smoother beyond comparison, because Compiz is still Compiz and Mutter is still Mutter.

I don't tweak for the sake of it anymore, but there are a few details of the interface that really bug me. I do wish I could change those, in some sense, but actually I just wish they'd been better worked out in the first place.

I intend to get a new desktop soon, and I'll probably make the switch then. Unity's feature set is getting difficult to ignore. The integration between HUD and Tomboy alone almost pulled me over last I tried it.